A fun little book of monsters, definitely not to be taken seriously for even a minute. Of course, these "fearsome critters" were never meant seriously in the first place.

The Good: Silly critters are great for a silly adventure. Any of these is a perfect encounter for an April Fools day game. I especially enjoyed that these are accurate descriptions of the critters from American folklore. And the recipe in the back should make an easy, nice stew if you substitute beef.

The Bad: Noty much to say here. The critters are kind of under-described, I suppose. If you mean to actually mean to use one, you may need to add abilties, feats, etc., unless you're playing it old school. I'm not going to deduct a star for that though, not given the intentionally ridiculous nature of the content and its cheap price (though I did catch it on sale).

As others have noted, the rules for the Craft skill are more than a little broken in Pathfinder (a legacy from old d20). Making Craft Work fixes this smoothly without making things more complicated. Small, bite-sized and cheap, it's invaluable if the Craft skill sees much use in your game.

Crafting is insane in pathfinder. There is no other way to put it. When my character looted some bulette hide and found out it would take something like 60+ years to craft it into bullete full plate armour (15000gp).. well, I rebelled and just started looking for a fix.

This is it. This is the fix. Every game that uses crafting rules NEEDS this PDF. Don't hesitate. Its good.

This supplement/module for the OSR-ruleset of old-school gaming is 21 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 18 pages of content, so let's take a look, shall we?

On the crunchy side, we kick this pdf off with a d24-list of random goblin traits - and damn are they fun: Stinking belches, muscled goblins, blood-draining goblins, eyes that stick out like those of a chameleon - you name it and get some truly weird mutations with neat rules-representations. Advice is also given on adding the CL of some of the modifications. From Sewer Creepers to Leaf Lurkers, we also get 3 different types of goblins and 6 tactics can be assigned to goblins to net them bonuses when trying to kill animals of putting things to the torch.

Beyond these, we get 3 new weapons - from child catchers to a thurible filled with noxious fluids, we get a neat little arsenal. There is also a d16-table of goblin traits to make them not your average humanoids, but rather dwellers of the realms of fey - with druidic powers, dimension doors, fey dances and water-breathing goblins, size-changing and other options.

After all these options, we get a total of 6 statblocks of goblins - from a burn squad to obese drinkers and goblins with magical prowess.

The second half of her product is the Tributary of Terror, a mini-adventure for levels 2 to 4. Hence, the following part will contain SPOILERS. Potential players should jump to the conclusion.

All right, still here? The (mapped) village of Reyr's Well is fully detailed in a concise, gazetteer-like write-u that even provides us with a menu for the tavern -a nice level of detail supplemented further by local rumors. And of course, the village has troubles - a fey greentooth goblin has infiltrated the well and needs to be taken out. Straight-forward nice little sidetrek - but also one that ultimately is utterly and completely generic apart from its adversary: The sidetrek here feels a bit forced - as if a gazetteer wasn't enough. There is no reason why the foe should be a goblin and honestly, more options for the green menaces or a more expanded sandboxy base with some hooks would have been more prudent.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to a printer-friendly 2-column standard and the pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience. The pdf also comes with ok hand-drawn artworks - nothing special, but ok at this price-point.

Spes Magna Games' mastermind Mark L. Chance has created a nice toolkit to get goblins some additional oomph that is not only relevant for S&W-DMs, but which should also be rather interesting for DMs of other rulesets - the ideas are suffused with a subtle humor that manages to evoke danger as well as keeping the goofy component associated with the little menaces.

And as much as I love the level of detail, the goofy abilities - the sidetrek in here is simply LAME with a capital "l" - it's the equivalent of Lassie barking that Timmy fell down the well when the town's set-up hints that so much more would have been possible. This is what drags the offering down from straight 5 stars to my final verdict - 4 stars and a recommendation to check it out for friends of goblins.

Spice up your opposition from mere cannon fodder with such delights as a table of random goblin traits (maybe the next one they face has a beer gut or remarkably huge ears... maybe there's a battle singer in that horde, singing off-key and quite ribald songs...

Maybe you want to sling in a specialist unit, a burn squad perhaps - arson specialists - or the (thankfully unique) Gurk Wound-Licker: a goblin renowned for beating a bugbear almost to death, dragging him back to the campsite and then entertaining everyone by proceeding to lick the poor creature until it expired!

These and more can be used to spice up any goblin encounter, but if you are in need of a ready-made one, then there's Tributary of Terror, a mini-adventure for characters of 1st-2nd level. It involves a small but prosperous hamlet, but there's more to it than meets the eye. This isn't just a goblin-bashing festival either, it's a fine living community with plenty going on that has the potential to spawn further adventures as well as the one presented here.

Some rulesets ignore the matter completely. Some will tell you under what circumstances your character can drown. Some will even give a method for determining how fast he can swim. Most have magicks that will allow you to breathe under water and so not have to worry about drowning (at least, not until the magic runs out).

Here, though, is a considered analysis of how to handle aquatic activities, more or less irrespective of ruleset (although it's best for a D20 system of some kind). It's assumed that you have a rating in Constitution and in Strength, and takes it from there.

First of all, most folks are assumed to be able to swim. At least a bit. Throughout the analysis, the focus is on a 'trained' swimmer - someone who has (if the system allows) ranks in a Swimming skill. Everyone can swim a bit, though, so footnotes handle the untrained swimmers.

Next, the speed at which you swim is discussed. A trained swimmer can, at need (say, during combat) swim reasonably fast but for relatively short periods of time. Underwater movement in other settings will vary: underground or otherwise cluttered places, or when intending to swim long distance - you will not be going full pelt. This is all for unencumbered swimming - but when did you last see an adventurer in his Speedos? To deal with that, there's a table to show the effects of swimming under load.

Then comes the question of getting tired. You can walk for an hour without getting too tired, if you are in reasonable shape... but swimming for an hour is going to be noticeable. This leads on to what happens when a swimmer gets tired, covering treading water, holding your breath and... yes, drowning.

Despite disclaimers about going for playability rather than realism, this has captured most of the niceties of aquatic exploits quite well, and unless you have a troop of Navy SEALs for a party should cover at least casual waterborne activities as an addendum to your chosen ruleset.

This document takes the crafting rules for Pathfinder and reworks them to make a bit more sense. It insightfully elucidates several edge cases that illustrate major drawbacks to the current system, and then fixes those problems in a way that preserves both a reasonably amount of realism and the practical truth that your adventurer simply isn't going to spend six months making a thing; she's going to be off adventuring!

It is worth noting that this applies to basic crafting (armor, weapons, etc.) only, and does not include or rework any of the framework for crafting magical items (a system which, as a side note, is also confusing and self-contradictory at times). So if you want a simple system that replaces the current crafting rules for making mundane and masterwork items, this is absolutely worth it to pick up.

This is a basic template to use to make your own random encounter charts for your use. The PDF is well laided out and clear to read. the example is easy to follow and shows how to use it as more then just a wandering monster table by adding a few details to some of the entries and making them more a part of your world. It also shows how to add depth to such a encounter chart.

A simple guide, written with lighthearted humor, on preparing a medieval celebration meal, including tips on what food to serve (including a few recipes), how to decorate, and even how guests are expected to behave. Great fun if you are preparing a dinner party to coincide with a Pathfinder session (or any medieval fantasy game, really). Includes game stats for a new Pathfinder class, the Trencherman (though I can't say if the recipes are Pathfinder compatible...)

The pdf kicks off with an introduction to this pdf version of the great Quid Novi-newsletter (which I've been receiving for the better part of a year by now) and then goes on to the gaming material. Each section is prefaced by a cool, aptly-written short IC-text.
The pdf includes an affliction that is quite amusing: Boogie fever. We also get a cool leather gauntlet with positive energy abilities, a nice new haunt and of course: Penguins!
An encounter with an emperor penguin, penguins as animal companions, little penguins and a cool magical trap with... Penguins! We also get a nice new cantrip-spell for bards and a cool list of recommended reading.

Conclusion:
Layout adheres to the two-column standard and is printer-friendly b/w, editing and formatting are top-notch and I didn't notice any glitches. Content-wise, this issue walks the thin line between being funny and usable and succeeds at both. Due to the fact that the file is free, I can unanimously recommend the file: You literally have no reason not to download this and should in fact do so. My final verdict will be 5 stars.

This pdf is 3 pages, 1 page SRD, leaving 2 pages for the free critter, so let's give it a closer look.

Tha baykok is an undead hunter suitable for mid-to medium level parties that has a tremendous potential to be both creepy and memorable. Why? It has 2 cool signature abilities I haven't seen before: It uses invisible arrows and is invisible, even while attacking, to all but the target of its attacks. Now this makes for very cool predator-like encounters and awesome horror-potential. What about PCs trying to protect a target from a whole group of them? Awesome work. And it's free.

Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch and while there is no artwork, the fluff-text makes sure to adequately convey the coolness of the creature. Layout adheres to the printer-friendly two-column standard. Plus: This is FREE. You get a critter that is cooler than a lot of creatures you usually have to pay for and for the price diddly-squat. You have NO reason not to check this out. If there ever will be a Spes Magna monster book with foes of that quality, I'll be sure to pick it up.